Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

dglink Recently released from a sanitarium, where he was kept after the mercy killing of his terminally ill wife, Stephen Neale is eager to regain his life. However, a fortune teller at a charity fair leads to an unusually heavy cake that is stolen by a blind man aboard a train; a mysterious organization called Mothers of the Free Nations leads to a séance and a murder, and the wrongfully accused Neale is on the run. Based on a novel by Grahame Greene, Fritz Lang directed this short, taut thriller that offers solid entertainment and a few unexpected twists. While not on par with "Metropolis" and "Fury," "Ministry of Fear" nevertheless maintains a fast pace, holds viewer attention, and is generally an above-average entry on Lang's resume. Set in wartime London, the 1944 film stars the dependable Ray Milland as Neale, with able support from an amusing Erskine Sanford, an elegantly mysterious Hilary Brooke, and a slimy Dan Duryea.Henry Sharp's shadowy black-and-white cinematography provides a noir-ish look that enhances the growing mystery. While the plot may have some lapses and a few potholes, inexplicable events follow inexplicable events, and viewers engrossed in Milland's quandary will not have time to ponder the inconsistencies. Well paced entertainment with a brief running time, attractive cast of pros, perfect for a rainy afternoon or late night watch.

ofpsmith I watched Ministry of fear because to be honest, I was rather curious of it. I knew it was based on a book written by Graham Greene, who also wrote the screenplay for The Third Man,, and it was directed by Fritz Lang (one of my favorite directors). Because I hold both of those people in high standards I expected this to be good. My expectations were nearly met. I found the film to be okay. Not great but it was good enough for a 7 star rating. But watching it, it felt more like an Alfred Hitchcock film, then a Lang film. It felt kind of like The 39 Steps or The Lady Vanishes. That's not bad at all (if anything that's good). But I felt it didn't hold up to either of those nor did it hold up to any of Lang's films. The acting was good, the story was good, but I felt the problem was that it just kind of went a little slow. It's good enough so if you're curious, give it a watch.

SnoopyStyle It's wartime England. Stephen Neale is released after two years in Lembridge Asylum. He had killed his wife in a mercy killing. He comes across a charity fair. There's a guess-the-weight-of-the-cake contest and also a mysterious fortune teller. He wins the cake but something strange is going on. A blind man gets on the train with him but he turns not to be blind. He tries to steal the cake but is killed during the bombing raid. Neale hires private eye George Rennit to help him investigate. He tracks down Mothers of Free Nations which ran the charity fair. Austrian refugees Willi and his sister Carla Hilfe run the charity.I love the start of the movie. The strangeness of the cake and the blind man. The guy had just gotten out of the asylum. The movie settles into a standard spy thriller. The rest isn't quite as interesting but it's workmanlike. It isn't the strange dark weird film that I thought at first. It's tamer and not as interesting.

bkoganbing Paramount did so well with Graham Greene and This Gun For Hire, making a star out of Alan Ladd that they went back to the same source for Ministry Of Fear using one of their best contract leading men Ray Milland as the star. The story starts out remarkably similar to Random Harvest where Milland is an inmate in an asylum.But while Ronald Colman was a shell shocked World War I veteran, Milland was in there for murder. The Code firmly in place said you can't have the hero be a murderer even if it was for a mercy killing of his terminally ill wife. So Paramount cheated the novel by having Milland only by the poison, not use it, and then have the wife find it and use it on herself, according to him. But the authorities arrest him anyway, but he's given a light sentence of two years in a rubber room.All of which make him reluctant to go to the police when some bizarre things start happening. At a bazaar no less when a fake fortune teller tells him to bid on a cake by guessing the weight. He gets the cake, but he's not the one it's intended for. The cake has a microfilm inside and the bazaar was a blind for some nasty enemy spies.We don't know that yet, but when a blind man who Milland shares a compartment with on a train to London knocks him out and steals the cake, Milland and the audience knows something is afoot. This was the part that strained by credulity the most. If the guy wanted the cake so bad, I'd have reported the assault to the police and let the cake go. But Milland doesn't trust the cops, that's understandable, but to chase the thief over the moors while the train is stalled because of a Nazi air attack to me was a bit much.Milland's curiosity sends him investigating the charity that was holding the bazaar and it's one of those refugee charities run by a brother and sister team played by Carl Esmond and Marjorie Reynolds. After that it's wading through a morass of mystery and deciding who's your friend and who's you and your country's foe.Even with Fritz Lang who was second to none in directing psychological thrillers, Ministry Of Fear doesn't succeed half as well as This Gun For Hire. It's all right entertainment, but falls way short of being a classic.